Archive for June, 2012

First there was Gollum, then Caesar the ape and now … Ted? If you thought motion-capture animation was beyond the range of foul-mouthed R-rated comedy, here’s your evidence to the contrary. “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane has taken his love of characters who shouldn’t behave like humans behaving like humans to the next level —and […]

This is a clip of a review first published on We Got This Covered. Who knew that social issues such as poverty and flooding could be explored in film with such — magic. Benh Zeitlin’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild” gives a folk tale quality to what is essentially post-Katrina New Orleans.

After vampires, movie studios these days love the apocalypse (or at least an alien invasion that could bring it about), so it was a matter of time before we started to get different riffs on Armageddon. “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” brings doomsday into romantic comedy territory and the resulting story […]

Disney is no stranger to the fairy tale (understatement of the last century), but princesses, curses and kingdoms are definitely new forays for its partner, digital animation powerhouse, Pixar. John Lasseter and company have always been more preoccupied with breathing life into inanimate objects and giving vocal cords to animals, so a film with humans […]

After 10 years it’s tough to imagine “Men in Black III” having any kind of meaningful impact on audiences. No one has spent 10 years clamoring for another entry after “Men in Black II” disappointed — at least no one who would go on the record publicly. Yet despite no attachments to the series but […]

Most every modern comic actor has his fans and detractors. Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell, for example, have love-hate relationships with fans and non-fans alike. After some exposure, young stars such as Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera started to rub people the wrong way. But I challenge you to find someone that can’t […]

Horror films always seem to take place in the present, which is understandable, considering one decade or century isn’t necessarily scarier than the next (in the traditional sense of fear). It also costs more money to dress up a film in a particular era. So if it weren’t actually scary or interesting, “The Woman in […]

Introducing the brand spanking new “Chicago Film Scene” section of Movie Muse! In my nearly three years writing, I’ve realized that there’s plenty of good filmmaking happening in this fair city in which I reside despite what they say about New York and L.A., and I’ve launched this section to help give hard-working filmmakers and […]

Sex addiction has yet to get a serious film treatment until “Shame,” the sophomore feature from filmmaker Steve McQueen. Generally we feel inclined to put a comic spin on anything that taboo (see the adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s sex-addiction novel “Choke”), but here we see how it ruins lives and relationships.

Let’s hope that Hollywood’s portrayal of the CIA is off, otherwise at this point every person with an appetite for action-thrillers knows exactly what goes on at Langley. “Safe House” is the latest “Bourne”-inspired romp featuring armed-and-dangerous Americans running, driving and parkouring through an exotic locale.

A return to the “Alien” universe from the man who originally envisioned it? Hard not to sign up for that adventure, even knowing that “Prometheus” appears to be quite far from an “Alien” movie. This film dares to ask bigger questions about creation and the purpose of life while thrusting us into an un-fathomable sci-fi […]

With “Prometheus” about to enter theaters, you may have been one of many—myself included—who put “watch ‘Alien’” on their to-do list. Director Ridley Scott and writer Damon Lindelof have tried to obscure the relationship between this summer’s blockbuster and the 1979 classic, but the former is a convenient excuse for visiting the latter.